The Battle of Midway by Craig L. Symonds

Author:Craig L. Symonds
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: History
ISBN: 9780199912070
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2011-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

Ensign Albert Earnest piloted one of the new Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers from Midway in the first attack on the Kido Butai on the morning of June 4. He and his enlisted radioman, Harry Ferrier, also seen here, were the only survivors of the mission. (U.S. Naval Institute)

Eventually the Zeros gave up the chase. Earnest still had to make it back to Midway with a plane that could barely fly. Badly wounded, with blood running from a neck wound, and all of his instruments out—even the compass—he used the angle of the sun to estimate which direction was south. He called his two gunners on the plane’s intercom, but got no response. He nursed the Avenger up to 3,000 feet and flew on. He did not know whether or not his torpedo had successfully dropped. After some time, Harry Ferrier regained consciousness and called him up on the intercom to report that he was still alive. Eventually, Earnest spotted a tall column of black smoke from the burning oil tanks on Midway. Ignoring a wave off from the airfield controller who didn’t think the crippled plane would survive a landing, he touched down on the runway on one wheel, his plane doing a ground loop before coming to a stop on the apron. Only later did he learn that he and young Harry Ferrier were the only survivors of the Avengers strike, and that none of the American torpedoes had struck an enemy ship.24

One reason the Zeros did not pursue Earnest’s crippled plane was that they had another target to deal with. Only seconds behind the Avengers were four Army medium bombers under Captain James Collins, Jr. The two-engine B-26 Marauders had been specially modified to carry torpedoes, which meant that they, too, approached the Kidō Butai at low altitude, around 200 feet. Collins flew through the swarming Zeros and the exploding flak to drop his torpedo, and as his plane passed over the Akagi his nose gunner strafed the big carrier, killing two of its crewmen. First Lieutenant James Muri followed Collins in. He heard “the shells coming into the side of the fuselage and near the turret.” Muri’s turret gunner, Corporal Frank Melo, saw “beads of sweat” on Muri’s forehead. Muri had a cigarette in his mouth, but he had bitten it in two, and “it hung by a slender strip of paper” as he focused on making the attack run. Like Collins, he came in very low to drop his torpedo, passing so low over the Akagi that Nagumo and his staff on the small bridge reflexively ducked. The other two planes in the formation were less lucky. Both of them, riddled with cannon shells and machine gun bullets, crashed into the sea. The two surviving planes, each with more than half their crew wounded, headed for home. Muri’s ground crew later counted more than five hundred bullet holes in his plane.25

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